Opposition politicians decried the move as a desperate rush job to try to stack the TSJ with PSUV supporters before the party loses control of the National Assembly on January 5. The opposition has pointed out that while the law dictates that the vetting period at the National Assembly for potential TSJ magistrates must last at least 15 days, this process barely took four. There were nearly 400 candidates for the 13 positions.

Opposition deputy Andres Velasquez also pointed out that the National Assembly currently in session does not have the legal authority to assign the magistrates, as the task falls to the assembly in session the year the outgoing magistrates are set to retire. In this case, the retiring magistrates’ terms are up in 2016, meaning that the opposition-controlled National Assembly has the legal authority to fill the vacated seats.

We’re definitely looking at an attack [against the rule of law], a dismantling of the institutionality of the country. We could define this [National Assembly] session as the “Session of Fear”. Who would have thought that you [the PSUV], who’ve been scaring people for the last 17 years, would hold this session today out of fear for the people?

A list of the thirteen new magistrates for the TSJ can be seen here, in Spanish.

Allup: Assignments Will Be Short Lived

Opposition deputy and leading figure for the Mesa de la Unidad Democratica (MUD) Henry Ramos Allup took to Twitter to denounce today’s National Assembly magistrate assignments and warned that they would be short-lived, possibly hinting at the possibility that the MUD-controlled incoming National Assembly would seek to revoke the assignments.